Simply Authentic...your soul voice is calling. Trust Your Own Emotional Compass

Trust Your Own Emotional Compass

I was playing my keyboard and singing when a memory came flooding over me and I sat down and wrote this post.  

It was Christmas at my family home. A lot of relatives were over for the festivities. I was in my bedroom playing the piano and singing Christmas music. One I chose was STAR OF THE EAST. I was having a very good time playing the piano and singing that song. If I remember correctly (my memory is a little sketchy here), other relatives were singing with me.

Uncle Steve rushed in (this part I remember for sure) and asked me to play it again because (this part I don’t remember for sure) one of the older female relatives – could have been my maternal grandma, or great-aunt – really liked that song.

So, I started playing it again.

Then another relative came in and asked me to stop playing it because X older female relative was in tears.

Obviously, Uncle Steve and whoever the other relative was interpreted X older female’s emotional reaction in very different ways. Based, no doubt, on their own emotional responses not only to the music, but how they felt being around someone who was crying. I did later learn that STAR OF THE EAST was this relative’s deceased mother’s favorite Christmas hymn.  So, it brought about some emotion.

The moral of this story, if there is one…? Trust your own internal, emotional compass.

I was a teenager when this happened, and not all that integrated with my own emotions.

I suppose if I were to go back and do it differently, knowing what I know now, I would simply shut the lid to the piano and walk over to either my grandma or great-aunt, and ask her if she wanted me to play the song again. I would take her hands, if she wanted them to be taken. If she wanted to cry and other people were uncomfortable with that, perhaps, I could whisperingly ask if she wanted to step into the laundry room or outside for a moment.

In which case she could weep to her heart’s content on my shoulder and and / or tell me (if she wanted to) what memories that song brought up about her mother. I suspect they were very good ones, and that she missed her mom.

I don’t think of this as a coulda, woulda, shoulda thing. That was a long time ago.

I just wanted to write about the memory when it swept over me…as it’s an awesome reminder to trust your internal, emotional compass. Therein, authenticity lies.

Trust yourself, then you will know how to live. –Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Authentically Yours, Laura